


Smile

by false_alexis



Category: Playboy Club
Genre: Closeted Character, Domestic, F/F, First Meetings, First Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:32:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/false_alexis/pseuds/false_alexis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love can start in many ways. For them it started easily, and with a smile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akerwis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akerwis/gifts).



> Thanks to Presentpathos for beta'ing this so thoroughly and quickly! All remaining mistakes are, of course, my own.

It started with a smile.

Sometimes love starts with a kiss. Sometimes it starts on a bright morning, like so many other mornings, when two people look at each other and know. Love can start with a word, a phrase; or with gallantry and honor, a statement of self through acts. Love can start easy with ‘yes’, or hard with ‘I don’t know.’ Sometimes it comes with a glance.

Sometimes love starts when no one’s looking. It goes unnoticed, hidden among the shadows of life, but bringing a pale illumination to all it touches. Sometimes, the greatest secret to love is simply recognizing that it is there.

For them, it started with that smile.

It started with the way Alice ducked her head, looking down. With the low way that Frances’s voice rumbled when she told Alice she was the prettiest bunny in the club. It started, perhaps, with the way Alice brushed her hand over Frances’s arm as she was walking by, not even turning her head, or the way Frances’s gaze tracked her across the room was something she didn’t have to see to know.

It started easily.

* * *

“So,” said Frances. She hung around the door frame, as if perhaps she needed to be framed, put up on display. The martini glass looked good in her hand, her strong finger wrapped around the delicate stem.

Alice’s lips curled into a smile, and she raised a single eyebrow. “So,” she agreed.

“Tell me, then, Alice, about yourself.” Frances raised her glass and took a sip. Her lip caught on the rim of the glass, leaving a faint imprint of her lipstick behind. Alice stared at it. “What do you do for fun?”

Alice refocused on Frances’s face, caught the hint of humor in her eyes, the teasing behind the mask of politeness. “Oh, I don’t know,” said Alice, letting a hint of delight into her own voice. “I suppose I am terribly busy with work, and of course my clubs. And then I have to be there for my husband whenever I can, you know. He has such a hard job in public.”

“Of course you do.” Frances nodded once. “He is a very committed man, and he seems… quite fond of you.”

“He is a good man,” Alice allowed. She poured the martini for herself, the one she had meant to pour three minutes ago but kept getting distracted from. It sat too long, the ice melting in and weakening the alcohol. She was grateful. Her head was already spinning. “My husband only wants what's best. And he takes care to make sure I can be… happy,” she said, because right then they’re not going to say too much.

“Of course. He lets you have your freedom.”

“He doesn’t let,” corrected Alice. “We create freedom for each other.”

“Ah, I see.” Frances was smiling, still, but there was something more to it.

Alice shook her head, once. “No, he’s been a godsend,” she insisted, not sure why she was standing up for him. Frances hadn’t attacked.

But then Frances approached, and if there was something that made Alice feel like the attack was yet to come maybe it was in the way she swayed, her hips moving slightly as she walked, as a cat stalks through the high grass. It was danger.

She stood behind Alice, still, and when she spoke her breath tickled Alice’s ear. “I’m sure he is.” A light touch of air on her neck made Alice shiver. “But what do you say,” she said, “we don’t talk about him any more?”

Footsteps behind her and the absence of warm air against her skin made Alice turn. Frances, ever so serenely, was making her way out of the kitchen, heading to the great green sofa in the living room. The swing of her hips as she crossed the room was deliberate, pointed, a message that Alice could read in every step she took.

The seat felt softer, as Alice eased down beside her. “So, let’s talk about you, then,” she suggested.

Frances swirled the martini in her glass. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.” The word hung in the air for a long moment.

Frances took the olives from the bottom of her glass, the toothpick gripped tight between her forefinger and her thumb. She lifted the olive to her mouth, and oh-so-delicately bit it off, her lips curved away so as not to smear her makeup, her eyes locked with Alice’s the whole time.

“You already know so much about me,” she say.

“What do you like? What do you care about?”

She held Alice’s gaze, and Alice is held hers, and every word they said felt like something Alice would remember forever. “I like to read. Politics, political theory, De Toqueville. It’s interesting to think how the people who run this country should be thinking.” She quirked an eyebrow. “Or the ones who run this city, though they almost never seem to be thinking about what they should.”

“What do they think about?” said Alice, almost at random. She just wanted to hear that smoky voice keep talking.

“Money, mostly.”

Alice laughed, because of course that’s what men thought of, that’s what Sean saw when he saw her, too. Frances would know the way money and politics twist together, tangling up in every detail, better than anyone. “And who talks about it with you?” she prompted, because she wanted to be that person, the one who Frances could talk too.

Frances broke her gaze, looking away sadly, and she shook her head. “Someone. She’s not a very good listener. I doubt we’ll speak about such things for much longer,” and Alice reached over, touched her hand lightly, ignoring the spark the contact brought and focusing on comforting a friend in need. Frances raised her head, a single wisp of hair escaping her ‘do and falling into her face, and if she couldn’t think of anything to say then maybe they didn’t need words at every turn. The evening faded this way, easy, without rules, without anyone.

When Frances rose, and Alice rose with her. “I’ll see you again?” said Frances, standing at the door.

“God, I hope so,” said Alice, honesty darting in and catching her off-guard. “What are you doing tomorrow evening?”

There was a twitch to her eye, a faint downturn of her mouth, and she glanced down. “I have other commitments. Perhaps the next day.”

“Perhaps?”

Frances laughed. “Patience is a virtue.”

Alice kept her expression cool. “I didn’t know it was virtue you were seeking.” As Frances’s laugh deepened, carried through-out the house, she pressed her luck again. “Can I have your number, then?”

“I’ll call you,” she said, and left. Alice watched the long line of her legs as she walked away, the way her calves curved, and she wondered.

* * *

“Frances!” gasped Alice. She twisted, sheets getting tangled around her. “Frances, yes, there-“

“Like this?” said Frances, lips pressed against the skin of her throat so that Alice felt the words vibrate through her.

She reached down to catch Frances’s wrist, to press her long fingers closer, harder inside her. “Yes, right there, oh god!”

It was new to her: not the sex but the lovemaking. She’d gone to bed with women before, a few, and kissed a great many more as girls will do. But this was different, a slow twist inside her, and Frances’s face, the way she looked at her like this was the only thing she’d ever wanted to do.

“Come on, come on,” Alice gasped, and afterwards, when they were both done, lying on a false marriage-bed sated and sweaty, she tried to explain it. “That was…”

Frances cut her off with a kiss. “That was exceptional,” she said when she pulled away. “And so are you.”

When Alice saw her gone in the morning it was with a smile she’d never worn before, like the first hint of spring brightening the air.

* * *

“Frances!” Sean’s head popped up. His hair was still wet, ungelled, standing up in little-boy tufts. “I didn’t know you where coming over.”

“Well, I certainly hope I’m still welcome,” she said. She wore that deep smile, the one that looked like she knew the secrets of the universe but was happy to let you in on the joke.

Sean got up. “Of course you are,” he said, drawing her into a hug. “You’re always welcome here, you know that.”

But it’s to Alice that she turned, seeking confirmation even as she said “Yes.”

Alice nodded once, pleased with the entire situation: her best friend with her arm around her… around her, there’s not even a work for it, for the woman who kindles warmth inside Alice every time she sees her face. “Do I get a hug, too?”

“Maybe,” said Frances. “Maybe not.” And she leaned in and kissed her, quick but firm, a statement of possession and affection and the things that Alice can’t think too closely about, not yet. Her arms came up around Alice, hands splayed over her back. “Are you going to feed me?”

“You? Perhaps,” Alice said. She leaned back, Frances’s sure grip taking her weight, keeping her from falling backwards. “If you ask nicely. I’m not your wife, you know.”

“I do admire a woman with a career of her own,” Frances said mildly, but she let Alice go back to the kitchen sink and the greens left sprawled in the colander. She rinsed and trimmed while Sean and Alice talked strategy, their words and their worries drifting past her.

Lunch was pleasant, warming, salad with Russian dressing and a turkey tetrazinni that she was rather proud of. Despite the heat of the stove the cooking, the washing, and the cleaning usually left her cold inside; but on that day feeding the people she cared about felt like a little bit of a treat, a present for herself. That moment, the fond smile on Sean’s face, the way Frances held her fork so firmly between her fingers, it’s something she wanted to keep, to store away against the bad days.

“Thank you, Alice,” said Frances, “for the fine meal. It’s so good to know your work life hasn’t spoiled you for womanly pursuits,” she said, between bites of drippy casserole, and Sean laughed so he almost choked, dropping his fork with a clatter onto the creamy dish.

He gathered himself, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “Yes, thank you, Alice,” he said, but he was still smiling.

“Well, I do my best for my husband,” she told him, folding her hands in her lap. Sean’s moment of panic and confusion was worth it for the way Frances grinned, unrestrained, at them both.

He laughed with them. They were safe for the moment, no Club nor Society to intervene, pull their attention or force them be any more or less themselves. No one to make Alice into what they need her to be.

The phone rang, and Sean took it. Alice guided Frances out of the kitchen, because those details mattered, who was seen where, whose distinctive laugh was heard in the background on the other end of a phone line. Frances let herself be guided, folding into Alice’s arms with an easy twist. “Hello,” she said, a warning.

“Hello,” said Alice, and when their lips met the taste of red wine and cream sauce was washed away by the brush of Frances’s tongue. Every nerve in her body burned, and she pulled Frances tighter, closer, until they were pressed tight together, touching at arms, legs, and hips.

Alice leaned away, but Frances held on to her, sliding a hand down her arm until they were caught only by the tips of their fingers. She couldn’t see her, but she could feel the way Frances’s thumb gently traced the pad of her own in lazy circles, finding places that shouldn’t have felt so frighteningly erotic.

“Well?” Alice said, holding her voice as steady as she could. “I have four hours, and Sean has to work.”

Frances didn’t say anything, but her thumb stilled against Alice’s palm. They held for moments. Sean’s voice in the background was a patter of false pleasantries, the neighbor out mowing his lawn a rude buzzing in their ears.

Alice looked over her shoulder. She was a coquette by profession; to use it now, to conjure up her most winsome look for this beautiful woman, was a pleasure she’d never enjoyed in any evening serving and smiling. She wanted to show her everything. “Are you coming?”

* * *

The sun shone on the two of them as if it has no other reason to be out than to but to brighten their day. Wind rushed through town to get to Lake Michigan, twirling Alice’s spring coat about her, whipping at the edge of her skirt. She laughed, dropping one of her bags when she went to smooth her clothes. Frances caught it gracefully.

“Madame,” she said, presenting it with a flourish. Alice took it with an elaborate bow, which almost made her drop everything, sending Frances back into peals of laughter.

They gathered themselves, turning to continue on their way down the street, ignored by all who passed them. Two young women of Chicago, respectable in every detail, nothing to note, and the city around them theirs for the taking.

It was 1962, and they were young, and in love, and going to change the world as only lovers can.


End file.
